Aries
by eoraptor
Summary: DISCONTINUED; Life goes on, and we all face choices. Sometimes they're choices forced on us, sometimes they're choices we can't avoid, and sometimes they're choices we regret. Where have Ron, Kim, and the rest been since Graduation?
1. Breaking Out

_AN: Kim Possible and related characters ©2002-2007 Walt Disney Company, no profit is intended by this work and no claims of ownership are made by the author._

_Okay, this will follow cannon, but for those of you sticklers, I am having a few of the episodes out of order just so that I can make events work the way I need them in the story. Set approx 3 years after "Graduation." Contains frank discussions of sexuality, language, etc; reader discretion is advised._

* * *

_**Aries  
**_A Kim Possible fan fiction  
_By Eoraptor_  
**"Breaking Out"**

_"You're silly! I'm silly! This whole sitch is silly!"_

She shuddered at the unbidden memory, setting her dinner fork aside and chewing her lower lip. Every once in a while things like that just bobbed to the surface of her mind. The day it had all started changing, her life. If she were ever to find herself alone in a room with that zinc-haired freak… Well, there would go her record of being on the side of justice. The felony assault charge would be so worth it to exact a little revenge on the electro-witch for permanently altering her mind.

Saying Shego was a little ambivalent about her new life would be like saying that things in Go City got a little hectic on Friday Fight Nights. Had she never been exposed to that freaking Reverse Polarizer, she'd probably still be a happy, malcontent, highly evil mercenary. She could still remember the old days; quite well in fact. Sadly, she couldn't work up the same zeal for felony that she felt in those memories any longer.

She really couldn't remember much from her escapades as "Miss Go" aside from those occasional flashes; which was probably for the best. Still, she knew that that was when it had changed. Her first clue was when she had found herself holding a picture series of herself and… …her.

Strangely, the malachite malcontent felt not disgusted, but… wistful… over the string of images showing the teen nemesis and her own alter-ego palling around.

Her hand involuntarily flared again at the reminiscence, as it had that day she caught herself feeling that way. A few deep breaths had the burst of emerald starfire under control and she sighed deeply. The one wistful emo moment she could have written off as having recently had her brain flip-flopped a dozen times. Much to her chagrin, however, it wasn't the last such moment of indiscretion.

Only a few hours later, she actually stilled Drakken's hand when he was about to unleash sweet canine vengeance on "Stevie." Again, she caught herself and forced her own finger on the "Unleash the Hounds" button; but it disturbed her that she was so badly afflicted still. A few weeks in Greece under the tender mercies of Midas, though, and she was back to her old snarky self.

Or so the evil lieutenant had believed; until the heroes had confronted her and Drakken at this fake college he'd set up as a cover operation. Not only did she not try to kill the sidekick/boyfriend immediately, but she'd actually complimented Possible on her new outfit. Not that she hadn't gotten in some good digs along the way… but come on!

After Cousin Eddie broke her out, and that had flopped, she took another sojourn to her fave spa to unwind. Unfortunately for the malachite mercenary, there were few heroes of caliber in the world, so it was her lot in life to run up against the same one again and again. Of course the Princess had other-

"Beep beep beep boooooop"

"What the hell?" Clawing a hand through her hair at further interruption of her night, Shego growled and lifted her other wrist, eyeing the blinking green light attached to her silver bracelet. She listened to 'Beethoven's Fifth' as played by a tiny electronic speaker set in the disguised pager and shook her head, "No way could one of those guard goons set the security system off… I designed to be moron proof. Hmmmm… So that probably means…"

Electric jade eyes flashed with excitement. Anyone who could even open the doors to the museum after hours should be good for a few minutes of fun. Exiting the restaurant's bistro-style patio, Shego held up her claims ticket, as well as a fifty dollar bill if the valet could get her vehicle to the front door with some speed. As usual, money talked and she had her Bugatti within twenty seconds.

With city traffic, even her thousand horsepower Veyron was going to take several minutes to get back to the Field Museum. She sighed softly, being left alone in her exotic super car only invited more of this introspective mood she'd been in all evening.

"Yeah, so after Possible showed up at the spa, accused me of breaking Drakken out, while I was on vacation! …I actually go back to see what is going on, and end up saving her life? Yeah, definitely soft going there… And now I'm talking to myself?!"

Tightening her already stiff fingers around the luxurious leather of the wheel, she grumbled and chewed her lower lip. She'd seen that big green Amazonian cliché about to clobber the senseless Kim and had just… gone nuclear. Melted the nigh indestructible alien manacles, nearly clobbered the monstrous woman again, and then actually called Kimmie's friends for… gasp… help.

Her criminal life had only gone downhill from there… Drakken had been abandoned again after Kimmie lost her memory and he concocted that asinine "army train" plan of his, and had nearly blown her up along with the locomotive. Then she openly defied Drakken when he was taken over by the ghost of a pirate. Sure he had her locked in the stocks for trying to take Kimmie down herself instead of allowing him the honor, but she'd never actually gone _against_ him before that.

There were other, further slips of course. When she was in Naples, shoe shopping, and Vesuvius had decided to get lippy? She could have just got in a little looting and then high-tailed it out of there. Instead, she found herself slipping into _gah…_ hero mode, just as she'd done back in the day with her brothers. She used her ultra-high temperature species of plasma to carve a channel for the lava to flow down, and then stood around blasting plumes of toxic gas into nothingness for nearly an hour. This time she _was_ the hero. No Global Justice or Team Possible in sight. She learned later that Kitten had been up the road in Milan on a mission of her own; so it had pretty much been only her, Shego, between the might of a mountain and the bay of Naples.

She had no explanation for the heroic slip up at the time, and chalked it up to a random impulsive act of showiness and bravado. Drakken was still her evil family, and she was avowed evil. Badness in its distilled form, right…? Yeah… right. When Warmonga had kidnapped him and Kim and threatened the Earth…

She grit her teeth as she approached the off-ramp for the Field Museum. That had been her chance to be rid of both Drakken and Possible. The old, hard core Shego would have gladly taken it, drained Dr. Dork's bank accounts and hidden out till the alien heat was off. Instead, she had fought her way to Downtown Middleton, to the one place she knew had a rocket ship, and had even relented in letting the buffoon Stoppable tag along.

Well, at least all her warrants had been cancelled. But the truth was, through all of the intervening evil, she had been bored. Not the usual nail-filing bored. No, that was average with a lack of things to do twenty-five days out of every thirty. No, she'd been bored with the whole "evil" thing, ever since that damned Reverse Polarizer. It just wasn't as rewarding all of the sudden, as though she'd milked evil for all it was worth. So, after Drakken went legit, she pulled some mercenary work, just to see if maybe it was him and not her. Unfortunately, it turned out to be her.

It wasn't Drakken's incompetence as a villain, although that surely helped. She was just no longer being rewarded by being bad. She no longer got an impure thrill out of kicking people when they were down, or a sexual tingle at the thought of world domination, even those sorts of things used to make her positively wet with anticipation. Now it was all just… meh.

As Shego slid up the gull-wing door of the Veyron and slipped out of the deep racing seat, pausing to adjust her dress, she sighed. The door to the museum had not been tampered with. Arching a raven brow, she looked up, almost by instinct. She had armed all the air vents, but…

After a few minutes, Shego could find no evidence of the break in around the perimeter, so the security expert made her way inside. Sue the T-rex was back on public display after a three year tour, and the Field Museum of Chicago had asked her to redesign the defense systems for her return. It paid good money, and the emerald woman had found that designing security systems that she herself could not evade proved to be enough of a challenge to keep her mildly entertained.

"Hmmmm, I wonder… do you think it could be Him?" She asked one of the guards as she came into the security room.

"Him? Aries? Here?!"

Aries was rapidly becoming something of a bogeyman, a wraith and legend in the criminal world. On the scene only a little over two years, and already his name was only whispered, never spoken aloud. A criminal never seen, never heard, and never caught. Shego had only encountered any evidence of the rising super-thief once; on one of her first legitimate jobs, about a year ago. When she had arrived, she had been presented with a black business card… honestly, who used something that corny? …a black business card with a stylized red astrological sign on it, the vaguely V-shaped ram's head of Aries. Her instructions from her employer were to prevent any more of those cards showing up.

Since no one had ever seen or heard Aries, no one could say anything about them. Was Aries a man or a woman? A single person or a team, or even an entire secret society? Shego had her own theories, tied to all the things she had learned as a villainess herself, combined with her Child Psychology and Development degree.

Aries was a man all right… an arrogant one. After all, he was naming himself after the very masculine God of War. He worked alone, but had a very effective network, since the things he stole were never seen again. He was supremely confident, especially since he only took on the biggest jobs and went up against the most impregnable of security setups. There was rarely even trace physical evidence left behind at the scenes of his crimes; a mark from a grappling hook here, the scratch of a glass cutter or knife there, and always those inscrutable cards, but never more than that; and usually substantially less. Yes… if anyone would dare break in to the most famous museum in the region, perhaps all of North America, probably to steal part or all of an entire Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, it would definitely be the quietly cocky Aries.

"If it is him… we're all about to earn our bonuses. Tonight is the night Aries goes down."

"But… no one has every even seen Aries. No video camera has ever remained on line long enough to-," As if obeying Murphy's Law, three camera's faded out to pixilated static at that moment. "…capture him on tape."

As the guard sighed and cradled his forehead in his fingers in an expression of dawning defeat, Shego stepped behind the partition. A few zips and a lot of rustling were heard, and a moment later, she stepped back into the main room, transformed. Gone was the slinky black evening gown of her night out. It had been replaced by her long disused black and green catsuit. She yanked at her seat in a rather unladylike display, grumbling, "It must have shrunk in the wash… damn it!"

The guard looked up, but any lecherous intent at the skintight cloth was far outweighed by his depression at a battle he already considered lost. "Yeah… shrunk, sure. You'll never catch him, you're just gonna look silly when the board of trustees asks what happened."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Chuck. Just tell me where those three cameras are." She hadn't been paying attention when they blinked out, and since the monitors cycled through, they were randomly shifting around the board, making it hard to tell at a glance.

"Right where you'd expect Aries to strike… Main Hall."

"Good, don't trigger any of the silent alarms, and stay here. I don't want to be scraping your carbonized ass off the wall if you get in my way."

Shego was gone before he could even respond. He hadn't even heard her leave, or heard the door latch closed. "Well, she did help save the world… maybe we've got a chance after all? Go get him Boss."

Shego had located her quarry within minutes. Pursing her lips in thought, 'well, guess it's a good thing I didn't rely on that psych degree after all, huh?'

Before her was Aries all right, clad in a skin tight bodysuit, all black, save for the red Ram's head symbol on the back and a pair of similarly blood red boots and gloves. The flaw in her profile of Aries? He was a She. A damned tall She in fact. Shego was no dwarf, coming in at a comfy five foot eleven inches, but she could tell that Aries was at least that tall, perhaps even a scosh taller.

Shego moved with utter silence, her trademark as a super-thief from long before the age of "Aries." She sat and watched the thief as Aries worked her way slowly around the utterly invisible ultraviolet laser grid. Well, obviously not too invisible giving the way that Amazonia here was slinking around it. God, and look at her! All that hair, dyed blood red to match her stupid outfit? Tacky much? Had to give her props for not tying it back or lopping it off though; that was very gusty and right in line with the theories on the thief's cocky nature.

The Mistress of Security, as she identified herself in all her contracts, studied the movements of her nigh-legendary foe and shook her head faintly. The intruder had made it to her target. Yup, she was after Sue all right. Aries crouched and pulled something out of a pouch on her thigh, a black pouch, strapped on by a band over her thigh, and a loop to the belt she wore, also black. Shego smirked as she watched Aries reach out for the nearest heavy toe bone of Sue with what appeared to be a drill. Wouldn't she be in for a surprise when the force field chose to spring to life… Old Professor Lipsky was still good for something after all.

A deep chuckle rolled through the heavy air as Aries paused just short of the activation point, withdrawing her drill and shaking her head. "Hmmmm, now this is a new touch…"

The malachite mercenary had to strain to hear the whisper. The voice was smooth, rich, and silky, and it sent a shiver up Shego's spine, raising the hair on the back of her neck. She shook the feeling off after a moment, gritting her teeth and standing there, still as a gargoyle.

Pausing in her deathly approach, she waited to see how this wraith chose to deal with the field. Probably to give up. Drew had designed the field with no emitters which could be tampered with after all, and no power cables that could be easily cut or redirected.

As she watched the intruder, Shego had to marvel at her just a bit. Despite being tall, and of what her male subordinates would call "an athletic build," a chauvinistic term for not having big tits and hips; the way Aries was perched before Sue was impressive and demonstrated a lot of power and endurance. She was crouched down low, balanced on the balls of her feet like a baseball catcher, with her thighs spread widely as she sat and thought about her next move. The emerald woman knew from personal experience how that pose got old real fast. Her own thighs and calves burned slightly in sympathy, yet Aries seemed to be completely untroubled after having been in the crouch for at least a full minute now.

Even from the back she could tell that not a single muscle in the other woman's body had twitched or moves since she re-sheathed the drill tool. So, she was damned strong apparently, or had the patience of a Shao Lin monk, maybe both. Would be fitting based on what precious little was known about Aries. Well, after tonight, a hell of a lot more would be known about Aries; such as her height, her weight, her fingerprints, her DNA, all the standard Metro PD booking routines.

Shego was drawn out of her inner checklist when Aries moved again. The verdant security supervisor watched as Aries pulled out another device, which resembled a screwdriver with a twisted and curled end on it. Electric jade eyes watched as she held it out to the same spot where the field should have cut on. It did, bit immediately started to melt back, an elliptical hole opening in the shimmering red field. And then all hell broke loose.

Shego grinned; the field was designed to set off every alarm in the building if its power flow changed for more than five seconds… Long enough to tolerate casual brushes, but short enough to trigger on any real attempted breach. Aries froze, and then, to Shego's shock, vaulted straight up into the air a good fifteen feet from her crouch, seizing the hook holding Sue's skull up and perching atop the great predator's head.

"No fucking way…" she whispered harshly, stunned at the impossible feat, especially with the way Aries had already been crouching for a good minute and a half before executing it.

Aries apparently heard her, despite all the whooping and whining of klaxons. From this distance, the emerald woman could see that Aries was wearing a mask, black, in the same stylized V of a ram's head astrological sign. Shego was hard pressed to make out any facial details, between the mask, the flashing red lights, and the distance, but she was sure Aries narrowed her eyes. Then she leapt again, from the skull, across the display area, and to the second floor of the museum.

Shego couldn't replicate the one hundred and eighty inch vertical leap; so instead she ran, coming around the exhibit, darting up Sue's spine, and leaping from the great carnivore's fossilized snout to the balcony. Within a few seconds she had caught sight of Aries as the neo-legend darted around a corner. The Mistress of Security knew where Aries was heading though, because it's where she would be headed if she'd been caught.

She got to the second floor window and her now glowing eyes darted around. The steel grating that came down with the alarm's sounding was already in place. Aries was nowhere to be seen. Shego ignited her hands and growled, the green light mingling with red to further illuminate the area.

Before a normal woman's brain could even have registered it, the super-heroine had reacted to a glance of movement out of the corner of her eye, and flung a ball of plasma in the proper direction.

When she turned her head, she was rewarded with the sight of Aries having screeched to a halt just short of the smoldering scorch mark. She grinned a predatory grin and launched another blast to the opposite side of the thief when she saw a thigh muscle twitch, indicating the super-thief was going to try to escape back the way she came.

"Ah-bu-bu-bu… not so fast there Red! You haven't even introduced yourself properly." she smirked and flicked her fingers back and forth, throwing off sparks of green star fire as she awaited a response.

Shego moved to close the distance between the two of them, but stopped after just a few paces. Something about Aries' eyes made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, again. The thief took advantage of the pause to flick her wrist. Shego didn't respond fast enough, and what turned out to be another of those black cards was flung at her face. It slashed across her cheek as she reared back, the card cutting her and momentarily distracting all of her attention with the sting and motion so close to her eye.

When the verdant one looked back, Aries was gone. Fortunately, once again Shego knew where she would probably go. Hands still blazing, she took off after the bandit, knowing she would be going for a fire exit now, as even Shego, Mistress of Security wasn't allowed to lock those, at least not while she was obeying the law.

The klaxons were really starting to grate her nerves as she arrived at the nearest escape. It was untouched. Aries had a head start on her, and should be here already if she had been scouting the place. That meant she wasn't going for the obvious choice. She growled and headed for the next one she would have chosen; which would be back at the first floor near the back of the building.

This time, though Shego was not in a mood to give chase. She ran to the back of the second floor hallway, and with a potent blast, eliminated the steel grating obstructing that window. She exploded through the few surviving bits of glass and steel, and plummeted to the ground, eyes already darting around.

She heard the faintest of thuds behind her and spun, already cursing herself. Aries had waited for her to make an exit, and then had followed her out. The super-jumper had no more problem covering the drop than Shego had. Yet, instead of running, as she easily could have in the relatively open alleyway, Aries simply stared at Shego.

It unnerved the thief-turned-consultant on a deep and profound level. She bit her lip and studied her foe intently. Apparently the front of Aries costume had the same sort of astro-sign that the back had. It was very strategically placed as well, the point at the bottom directing the eyes downward towards slender thighs as the back had done for her buttocks, and the horns of the sign coiled around her breasts provocatively. The mask mimicked the symbol, breaking up the shape of her face, covering her nose, eyes, and brows completely. The skin immediately around her eyes was even painted black to match the mask, Shego could now see.

Those eyes, those deep, leaf-green eyes staring at her. It hit her all at once; a wave of recognition, vertigo, familiarity, and most of all, utter shock.

Her hair was too dark; blood red rather than carrot… She was definitely too tall… and her body was slightly more curvaceous… She was too fast, way too strong… Her voice, at least the few words she had spoken, was too deep… And yet, this had to be… But no, she'd been gone three years. She would never become something as… bad… as a thief, especially one with the reputation that Aries had garnered in just over… just over two years.

"Kimmie?"

Between the shock, and the inhuman speed with which Aries moved, Shego never had time to react to the fist across her jaw. The force with which it impacted her jaw would probably have killed a normal woman, and Shego wasn't exactly bouncing back up from it either. Still, she had survived worse, including being thrown into the solid concrete support of a charge microwave transmission antenna and having it collapse atop her.

It took her a few seconds to pick herself up off the ground.

When she looked around, Aries was long gone.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

_Author's notes: Okay, this story was actually inspired by a piece done by the immeasurable Hobnobrev of "Mind, Body & Soul" fame, and also in some small part by Apoptosis, who wrote the great "Mutation" and "The Box." At this time I have far too many fics rolling around my head, including this one, so I reserve the right to take it down later and not repost it until I have more time to dedicate to it… I also reserve the right to up the rating from T to M if I put in more adult content. (which is probably what will happen) Until then, let me know, what you think, huh?_


	2. A Day in the Life

_AN: Kim Possible and related characters ©2002-2007 Walt Disney Company, no profit is intended by this work and no claims of ownership are made by the author._

Okay, this will follow cannon as far as graduation, but for those of you sticklers, I am having a few of the episodes out of order just so that I can make events work the way I need them in the story. Set approx 3 years after "Graduation." Contains frank discussions of sexuality, language, etc; reader discretion is advised. 

_Please Leave Reviews?  
_

_**Aries  
**_A Kim Possible fan fiction  
_By Eoraptor_  
**"A Day in the Life"**

Bonnie shook her head in irritation and came to a decision. She was just going to have to ask Kim what the hell was going on. Three days ago her boss had returned to the lair in a funk. She'd then done something the dancer had never heard her do in two years; she told Bonnie to call the client and tell her that the contract was canceled, and worse, that her deposit would be… refunded.

Then Kim, or "Aries" as she preferred to be called at all times, retreated to her apartment. The dark haired girl hadn't seen her since. She grumbled and clicked off the TV, "Three frickin' days…"

Running her hand through her Tinkerbelle style, raven blacked hair, the former ballerina and cheerleader rose from her couch and walked to the back wall of the little ranch. The modest ranch, in an older suburb on the outskirts of Springfield, was a cover of course; and a damned good one. She flipped the left most of three light switches in a specific pattern a few times, and the area rug on the floor rolled back to reveal a stairwell.

Descending into the lair proper, Bonnie shook her head again. The last two weeks had been rough enough on her with the boss, and the last thing she needed from Kim was a bout of Emo'ness. First, the command that she change her hair back. Apparently she wasn't allowed to experiment; so she'd had to use a bottle of store-bought hair dye to cover over her expensive new cotton-candy pink club chic look. She was getting used to the bottomless black hair now and how it contrasted with her cobalt blue eyes, but the lack of choice in the matter still stung.

Honestly, no one from their old lives would have recognized her anyway. Long gone was her bronze skin, the victim of spending most of her time out at night or down in the lair rather than under the Colorado sun or in a tanning bed. Still, Aries said that raver pink attracted too much attention and made her easy to remember, as if she didn't draw attention all ready. She was to dye it, and wear wigs when out in public until her own mundane brunette tresses returned.

Then, this new contract had sent the boss into a fit of odd behaviors. She'd made Bonnie watch her train for hours on end and nitpick every flaw she could find in her movements, something the ex-dancer was adept at and enjoyed usually. She'd taken to eating even more bizarre things than her usual diet of meat so rare it still had a pulse, and raw vegetables from the organic grocers. Sushi and tons of rice had been added to the menu, and then removed just as abruptly a day before the assignment.

Now, the final insult. Kim had not come out of her apartment in the lair for days apparently. The lair of Aries had only two entrances, the secret stairwell to Bonnie's house in the burbs and a vehicle access that opened seamlessly into a parking structure closer to downtown. The erstwhile brunette didn't know how in the hell Kim afforded all of this, because even she didn't make the tens millions of dollars with her heists it would probably have taken to build it all. What she _did_ know was that if Kim had left at any point, she'd know about it since both entrances were heavily monitored despite their flawless disguises.

A quick tour around the lair-proper revealed no signs that her redheaded boss had been active down here either. Everything was just as Bonnie had left it the night of the heist, right down to the discarded candy bar wrapper stuffed into her coffee cup next to the police band scanner. Sighing, she went to the door to Kim's apartment and knocked quietly. She'd been admonished one time too many about 'pounding on the door' to knock at even a normal level.

When no response came, she spoke to the door equally as quietly, "Kim? Everything okay? I know you flopped big time, but we still have other jobs to do."

The almost apologetic tone in Bonnie's voice was unusual, but then this was an unusual situation. She'd never known either Kim Possible or Aries to fail at anything. The lack of response, though, evaporated any charity that the assistant was feeling and the brass and cutting edge returned, "Fine… you want to be all emo, I'm just freaking coming in!"

Bonnie really disliked going into Kim's apartment for a number of reasons. Partly because she wasn't usually invited in, and it felt like an invasion of privacy even if the apartment was smack dab in the middle of a working lair; after all, she was a bit uncomfortable when Kim came up to "her" house above the lair. The bigger part of her misgivings, though, were more practical; the place just gave her the creeps.

Being at least two stories underground, it had no windows. That in itself wasn't unusual and Rockwaller had grown used to a lack of sunlight a while ago in working with the super-thief. Yet, whereas the rest of the lair was well lit with expensive white LED lights that simulated daylight, the apartment was kept perpetually dark. That wasn't the limit of things though. In addition to simply not being well lit save for some panels that emitted bluish electroluminescent light like a wrist watch on steroids, the walls and furnishing of the apartment were also dark. Bonnie knew from the few times she'd come in with light from the hallway spilling in behind her, that the walls were painted a deep slate blue, and most of the furniture was a sort of maple or burgundy red. Likewise, the floor was covered in an insanely thick plush carpet, also of that odd deep red. This place sucked in light without needing to be black.

Yet, despite its darkness; Bonnie knew the apartment to be lavishly, if spartanly, appointed. That dark couch was actually over-stuffed Italian suede, dangerously comfortable and inviting to just curl up on and sleep for days. She'd asked Kim where she'd got it from; but the boss had said there was no way she was letting Bonnie put fifteen thousand dollar furniture in her middle-class ranch house for the world to see.

Even through her shoes, Bonnie could tell that the carpet was of the same obscene quality, thick and fluffy while still supportive beneath her feet. Again, this was a nicety that, though she could afford it thanks to the life of crime she partnered in with Aries, she was forbidden from having in her house on the surface. Sighing, she carefully picked her way through the near-blackness to the next room, assuming that even in the dark, she'd have seen Kim sitting in the living room via the limited light let in from the open front door.

Another thing about Kim's little lair-within-a-lair, was that all the walls were sound-proofed. Not that she had ever known Aries to bring anyone home for a wild night of passion that might disturb her upstairs neighbor, yet no sounds got outside from within, nor in from the outside. Bonnie's eyes and ears adjusted as best as they could to the darkness and silence. She could now make out the outlines of the furniture, though just barely. Still, she could not hear Kim moving around anywhere in the apartment.

With growing frustration, Bonne came to the darker outline of a door and felt along the wall next to it until she found what she wanted, "If you're not going to answer, Kim, I'm turning the god damned lights on. Not all of us like to skulk around in the dark."

Knowing that the apartment actually did have the same white LED's that the rest of the lair had, in case of emergencies, Bonnie moved the slide about half way up and allowed her eyes to adjust to the gradually increasing, but still dim light.

This was the first time she had seen Kim's apartment in anything approaching normal light, so she paused to take in the scene. Previously unknown to her, the moldings that ran around the floor and again at the ceiling, were white. Likewise the doors between the rooms were also painted white wood, as was the slowly rotating ceiling fan. The light switch she had her finger on was richly red stained maple wood with what her digit now told her was synthetic ivory for a switch, as were the small end tables around the couch and at one side of the lone leather recliner, red with white ivory appointments. Bonnie grit her teeth softly in jealousy. It was actually very beautiful in its understated way, rich without being ostentatious. And Kim had the nerve to keep it all in near total darkness. Still, it needed a TV, and a stereo, and some desk lamps and other homey touches. The only thing that said it was anything other than a hotel room was a few lone photos of Kim's immediate family.

She'd half expected Kim's place to be the same theatrical black and red that her costume was. Aries was nothing if not into appearances after all. Sighing, Bonnie increased the lights to three quarters and looked around the living room once more, moving to the door to the bathroom. It was open, and no one was inside the small but functional room apparently. A small shower lived in one corner, with multiple gold plated heads. It looked so sinfully inviting that Bonnie felt momentarily compelled to strip down and use it until the hot water was exhausted in the entire lair. She shook off her impulse and turned. The toilet was glossy black porcelain with gold fittings, as was the pedestal sink. Despite being bottomless black porcelain, they still seemed somehow warm and comfortable. The tile of the floors and half the walls was white marble, and the rest of the way up the walls and across the small ceiling was a large black and white check pattern.

Turning away from the hygienic opulence, the assistant moved to the other side of the living room. The door was closed, but jealousy and irritation had moved her beyond the impulse to knock. She opened the door, prepared to find the bedroom, presumably with Kim lying languidly in some decadent four poster canopy bed. "What the hell is this?"

Bonnie knew from the dimensions of the rest of Aries' Lair, that the apartment could contain no more than these three rooms. The kitchen was elsewhere, so this place had no stove or fridge. Yet, where she should have found the bedroom she had always known was here yet had never entered; she instead discovered a room whose function she could only guess at.

It held only two pieces of furniture. One was another deep red maple side table, this time with a small white altar candle astride it. It had been burned a few times, and the plate it sat on was mounded with white wax drippings. Between that and the next furnishing was some sort of thick shaggy mat of deep red, larger than a bath mat but not big enough to be an area rug for the whole room, the floor in this room being hardwood rather than carpet. The term "prayer mat" came to her mind, but was as quickly banished.

At a right angle to the table, along the adjacent side of the rug, was some glossy white machine the only other bit of furniture in the room. It looked like a cross between a dry-cleaner's steam press and a deep freeze. A thick power conduit snaked from its back to the wall, but it made no sounds of being powered up in any way. The apparent lid of the long low box was bordered with a thick black rubber seal, and it bore a low black handle along its long front edge. The whole thing was about seven feet long, and four feet deep and tall. Its slightly curved surfaces and overall dimensions gave Bonnie the vaguest impression of a coffin. The illusion of a sarcophagus, though, was broken by the luxurious white towel hanging from a bar at one end of the box, and the aforementioned power cord.

"Okay, now this is weird, where the heck is she?" Bonnie leaned against the door frame to the weird room and again ran her hands through her cropped onyx locks. After a moment, she stepped further into the room, thinking maybe the bed was actually hidden somehow from the view at the entrance.

She looked into the two corners she couldn't see from the door, but they bore featureless walls, a low red maple dresser slung along one, holding probably clothes in one side, and the Aries suit in the other. Kim owned few clothes these days. Not a bed of any sort was to be found though. The former cheerleader was about to depart when the sound of a refrigerator door opening met her ears. She turned to the only thing in the room that could have made the noise, and her heart caught in her throat.

A pale figure sat up from within the box, her already blood red hair even darker and plated down her back as water ran off of her body. Gripping the now upturned lid of the white box, the figure easily lifted herself up and stepped out, water sloshing unseen behind her as she dripped on what was apparently a combination bathmat and meditation pad. Sighing, she grabbed her towel from the edge of the machine and wrung her hair out into it before pausing, "Why are the damned lights on?"

Green eyes narrowed at her impromptu guest, and the unaccustomed brightness. "I was in there that long, huh?"

Bonnie was transfixed by something. Part of it was Kim, of course. She had a body that was unusual to say the least. It reminded her assistant of that actress Kiera Daily from those Pirates movies. Kim was long and lean, but also clearly muscled, not skinny as much as lithe and deadly-looking, even in her current nude state.

But that was not what really had Bonnie petrified as she slowly backed towards the door. She paled even more beyond her normal club-hopping night-riding skin tone and gasped, "You're a… a… ah…"

Her mind kept replaying the vision of Possible rising from this long, low, white box in silence. It then combined that with Kim's preferred diet of almost raw bloody steaks, and her abilities of the last few years; and the horrible arithmetic of it all was undeniable.

Kim, for her part, was displaying a mixture of confusion and irritation. Her assistant had never shown any fear of her, not in their past, and not since they had gone into business together. She looked around, wondering if there was someone else in the room she was missing. Seeing no one, she then looked back to Bonnie, shrugging her bare shoulders in confused exacerbation. "I'm a what?"

"_DRACULA_!" and with that the black haired assistant was bolting away from the 'bedroom' door and through the living room.

"Oh… for the love of…" Pausing to make sure her feet were sufficiently dry to avoid slipping on the hardwood floor, Kim darted after her helper.

In just a few superhuman paces she had caught up to Bonnie. Then she leapt past the slightly shorter woman, arching over her head, and coming down between the assistant and the front door, arms outstretched. "Whoa... just a minute there, B."

The former brunette skidded to a stop and bobbed up and down, trying to gauge if she could dart between Aries and the doorframe. Deciding that she definitely couldn't, she spun on her heels and bolted back to the 'bedroom.'

Sighing with exasperation, Kim began unenthusiastically pacing back across the living room, toweling out her hair as she went since it was obvious she wasn't getting a chance to shower any time soon. Coming to the now closed bedroom door, she sighed and knocked lightly. Keen ears detected a terrified whimper in response, and she shook out her hair, grumbling.

"Bonnie… if I was really a Vampire, don't you think I would have killed you and drank your blood the night I found that guy beating on you? Or fed on him for that matter?"

Another fearful whimper from beyond the thick door was her only reply. Sighing, she shook her head. Had Bonnie really only stopped to ask herself about her new abilities now, after more than two years? And why the Vampire theory? That really made no sense to the redhead. She had no fangs, nor could she change into a bat, and she went out in daylight… once in a while… last summer… for like ten minutes, right?

Kim sighed and looked at herself. Okay, so she _was_ a little bit pale. Redheads usual were, though. Yeah... maybe she was inhumanly strong, and fast, and had ears like… _okay…_ like a bat. Among other abilities. Then there was the whole eating ultra rare t-bones thing.

'_Yeah, and Bonnie's never seen how I have to sleep either… I don't imagine seeing me pop up out of the sen-dep tank naked could help dissuade any delusions of a monstrous nature.'_

"B? Look… I can explain really. It's kinda funny actually. Not funny haha, but you know- funny strange?" she winced at having channeled Ron, but it was true enough. Shaking off further unpleasant thoughts of her Ex, Kim pressed on. "See that thing behind you? Does it _look_ like a casket?"

Silence, but she could hear enough to know Bonnie was moving around in the bedroom. "It's a sensory deprivation tank, plus a few modifications. The same as why all the lights were off when you came in, and why the walls are sound-proofed."

Aries sighed quietly and wrapped the towel about herself. She sat down on the floor in a lotus position and just waited. After a few minutes she heard Bonnie pad her way to the door.

"Why do you sleep in a refrigerator?" came in a slightly nervous whisper from the other side.

She sighed with mild frustration. She occasionally forgot that the sensory deprivation tank recycled itself after use, and that it wasn't currently full of salt water as it was when she got in it to sleep. So yeah… it would look like a meat locker inside.

"You try sleeping with ears that can hear the crickets scurrying around on the floor," she muttered bitterly for a moment. "Why don't you come out of there and we can talk about it?"

Kim refolded her legs so she was no longer sitting prone right in front of the bedroom door, and after another trepidatious moment, the door opened and Bonnie emerged. Her eyes continued to dart around nervously, so the redhead made no sudden moves what would drive her back into the bedroom with its nigh impenetrable painted oak door.

"If you haven't figured it out by now… I'm not exactly normal…" She looked up to Bonnie as she adjusted the towel to be slightly more demure; normally when in her apartment any more she went nude.

With a derisive snort, Bonnie shook her head, looking away. Kim could hear her pulse slowing in the quiet apartment, and allowed herself a tiny smile. Leave it to Bonnie to switch from scared stuffless to righteously indignant that quickly.

"You were never normal, K." she looked around the apartment, and then strode past her employer and sat down on the luxurious couch, sighing as the suede conformed to her body and instantly warmed. "Now you just have a diagnosis, apparently."

Kim wanted to leap from her seat to the couch, a good fifteen feet away. She hadn't stretched or exercised in days and she was feeling it. But she feared that such a frog-like super leap would send Bonnie scurrying again. Sighing, she stood up, stretched a few times, and headed for the couch. Taking a seat and ensuring her towel was in place for her guest, she sighed. "Funny you should mention diagnosis. But we'll get to that…"

The sapphire eyed girl watched Aries stretch and move, and tried not to stare. She'd seen Kim do incredible things back in high school, but nothing like what she did now as Aries. Things like leaping fifteen feet straight up, or bench pressing Bonnie's small car when she'd needed to change a tire. Granted it was just a classic Beatle restored, but it wasn't exactly the kind of thing a girl Kim's size should be able to lift with little effort while laying underneath.

"You see Bonnie… I have super senses…" The redhead watched her companion to see if she would rail against the assertion, and then continued, "Like right now, I can hear your heart beating. I can feel the heat of your body wicking through the suede of my couch; incidentally, if you're too hot we can go out into the lair where it's cooler."

Bonnie swallowed softly and stared at Kim. "I suppose you can smell my blood too, huh?"

"Damn it…" Gritting her teeth and sighing, Kim resisted the urge to throw up her hands. "I am _not_ a vampire, B. If you were cut, then yeah, I probably could smell a little blood. Incidentally, the next time you get laid, could you please douche or something before coming into the lair? Three weeks ago I practically had to shower just to get the smells off me, not to mention your lab chair."

The ex-cheerleader's cheeks blushed intently, but her eyes flashed with embarrassment and irritation, "Excuse me for having a sex life, Aries… not all of us can be celibate for our careers!"

Kim blushed. She had just spouted off, not meaning to call the girl on her personal life. She envied Bonnie her ability to come and go as she pleased while "Kim Possible" had to remain hidden. "Look, I'm sorry… but as you can see, it takes quite a bit for me to relax. Even more for me to sleep. I'm a little cranky when someone barges into my bedroom and turns all the lights on."

Nodding slightly, Bonnie said nothing more on the issue. After a moment, "So, what turned you into Wonder Lady? I mean, you were good in school, but you weren't picking up those giant wiener dogs we ran into that one time or anything…"

"Windigo," the blood haired thief whispered softly, self-consciously rubbing her bare arms.

Bonnie noticed the gesture, but couldn't see the invisible scars that Kim was caressing, which now existed only in her memories. "What's Windigo?"

-- -- -- -- --

_AN: Well, folks, you have the venerable Hobnobrev to thank for the completion of this chapter… It's been sitting half-complete on my hard drive since July, and only his reposting of the Halloween story which inspired it on KP slash Haven inspired me to wrap up the chapter._

_I'm going to try a little experiment with this story, telling each chapter from only one person or one group's point of view, instead of jumping settings multiple times in a chapter… Please leave reviews and let me know how I am doing. _


	3. Careworn

**_Please see the end notes on this DISCONTINUED STORY._**

AN: Kim Possible and related characters ©2002-2007 Walt Disney Company, no profit is intended by this work and no claims of ownership are made by the author.

**_Aries_**

A Kim Possible fan fiction

By Eoraptor

_"Careworn"_

"Ah! Team Possible! Thank goodness you're here!"

"No time to talk dude, which way did the giant robot go?"

The owner of the recently leveled business gave the blond man a look of confusion, and then gestured towards a trail of destruction leading away down the street. He scratched his head at the seemingly oblivious question, and watched the pair run off down the street.

"…well, that was Ron Stoppable, but who was the busty girl with him? I thought Kim Possible went missing?"

* * *

**_Aries End Notes:_**

Well, if you've reached this page, you've reached the end of **_"Aries" _**

Why did this story end here? For a number of reasons, most of them having something or other to do with my OCD.

I was never completely thrilled with the prospects for this story. The concept of Evil Kim versus Good Shego has been tackled a number of times, and my particular version didn't seem to contain anything special or unique to it. And then, Halloween of 2009, I started the "**_Lineage" _**story and that pretty much was the death knell of "Aries." From the very first, it seemed to better handle the concept of a super-powered Kim Possible than "Aries" ever did in my eyes.

_So, how would this story have gone had it continued? _

Shego would have revealed a crush on one of her male security guards, one on which she could not act because he was married with a small child (albeit a child who liked Shego a lot) .

Wade would have been revealed as Kim's mission control as Aries. (An idea I have reused on a KP Slash Haven story, this is one of several Haven exclusives I am involved in.)

Kim and Shego would have continued their reversed dance, with Kim now pushing Shego to her performance limits instead of the other way around.

Kim would have revealed why she ran away in the first place. The first night she tried to have sex with Ron, she realized she was a lesbian, and could not go through with the act when confronted with Ron's penis. She intended to just get away for a few days, but during those few days she became infected with the windigo nanites which turned her into Aries, so she simply stayed gone and eventually saved Bonnie from rapists and took up the crimional path etc.

Shego would have gone to see the new Team Possible, which consists of Larry and Jocelyn Possible, and led by Ron Stoppable.

It would be revealed that Ron is in a romantic/sexual relationship with Joss. And since he is twenty one, and she sixteen, it's a felony, which Shego would use as leverage to make Ron help her with the Kim problem.

Eventually Kim would have told Shego just what she was really after was Shego herself.

Shego was not, nor never was in fact, interested in such.

The recipient of the fully functional Windigo nanites would have appeared to wreak havoc. (This was where the story always bogged down in my head, because in my head this person was Bonnie. Now obviously that doesn't work since Bonnie is already in use as Kim's partner in crime)

Somewhere in there would be a full explanation of what Windigo has done to Kim, that she had received only part of the Windigo program during the accident that turned her into Aries, and just what it's full scope was intended to be (super soldiers)

Kim would be hit by Ron's team with a nanite-killing antivirus designed by Larry, which would almost kill her because her body has been too heavily modified by the Windigo system to survive without it.

The weakened Kim and Shego would have had to team up to stop the full Windigo supervillain, as well as getting help from Ron's new Team Possible.

Someone (never was sure who) would point out to Kim that Bonnie had been hanging around her all these years later through known criminal activities because she was both in love with, and submissive to, Kim.

Happy ending achieved, Kim and Bonnie would go off to do whatever, legal or otherwise, together, finally in a real relationship with one another.

Shego would return to her security company to find out that her employee is in the middle of a divorce, and now fair game, and also reciprocates her feelings.

I'm sorry to have discontinued this story, but in the end, the ideas I wanted to explore with it, I have more fully explored elsewhere, and there's just no enjoyment in writing it. Still, there's no reason to take it down completely and destroy it for the people who have already enjoyed it, either. I hope this notice gives plenty of closure to those people who have **_"Aries"_**on their watch lists. I did enjoy the story while it lasted, and eventually, maybe there will be someone willing and able to continue it from where I left it off.

Your humble author

-Eoraptor


End file.
